Was Steve Jobs ever wrong?

[theluggage]

The Newton was a PDA not a tablet

Arguable. It was a hand-held computer.
Smartphones and lower-end tablets took over the PDA role.
Something like an iPad Mini is the closest modern equivalent.

Not to mention, the Newton was a Sculley project and stood no chance of survival when Steve came back.

The main issue when Steve came back was that the company was circling the drain and the Mac range was a mess. Rescuing the Newton and Quicktake would have been a luxury they couldn't afford.

Still, Apple-under-Sculley invested in ARM in order to make the ARM 6 processor for the Newton - without that, the iPhone and Apple Silicon may have looked rather different...

 

[Bubble99]

Arguable. It was a hand-held computer.
Smartphones and lower-end tablets took over the PDA role.
Something like an iPad Mini is the closest modern equivalent.

Why would Steve Jobs not want this?

 

[Spock]

Arguable. It was a hand-held computer.

Sculley/Apple literally coined the term PDA when the Newton was released.

 

[theluggage]

Why would Steve Jobs not want this?

We don't know what Jobs would have done/wanted if, in '98, he'd inherited a flourishing company with the primary Mac product range working well, the Copeland OS ready for release, and plenty of surplus cash to "fix" the Newton. Even the famous 4-quadrant product matrix was a plan to resurrect a failing company.

Sculley/Apple literally coined the term PDA when the Newton was released.

Scully invented the name - for a device category that had existed since 1984:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psion_Organiser

...and (subjective opinion) the best PDA ever (relative to the technology of the day) was the 1991 Psion Series 3:

Psion Series 3 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

...which included the ancestor for the Symbian OS - a major smartphone OS until the iPhone upset things.

You could even get an Autoroute cartridge for the Psion 3a - Google/Apple Maps for the early 1990s! (Didn't include GPS, though... that would have been a second mortgage at the time 🙂 )

 

[Spock]

We don't know what Jobs would have done/wanted if, in '98, he'd inherited a flourishing company with the primary Mac product range working well, the Copeland OS ready for release, and plenty of surplus cash to "fix" the Newton. Even the famous 4-quadrant product matrix was a plan to resurrect a failing company.


Scully invented the name - for a device category that had existed since 1984:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psion_Organiser

...and (subjective opinion) the best PDA ever (relative to the technology of the day) was the 1991 Psion Series 3:

Psion Series 3 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

...which included the ancestor for the Symbian OS - a major smartphone OS until the iPhone upset things.

You could even get an Autoroute cartridge for the Psion 3a - Google/Apple Maps for the early 1990s! (Didn't include GPS, though... that would have been a second mortgage at the time 🙂 )

Exactly, Sculley invented the name when the Newton was released, so that means that Apple and John Sculley considered the Newton a PDA with the eMate being a weird exception. I do agree, the Psion was a pretty cool device.

 

[phoenix-mac-user]

ISTR the popularity of large-screen "phablets" really took off with phones like the Galaxy Note - released in 2011 a few weeks after Jobs died, and when Tim Cook had been effectively running the company for some years. The big iPhone fizzle was the iPhone 5 in 2012 which (a) doubled down on the small screen and (b) coincided with the Apple Maps fisasco - something that Cook has actually accepted as his mistake. I was using cheap Android phones up until then, but was ready to switch to something a bit more premium & was waitimg for the next iPhone, but the 5's small screen and the (at the time) awful-outside-or-the-bay-area Maps convinced me to get a Galaxy Note II (great phone!) instead.

The first "phablet" came out in 2011 but most Android were bigger than the iPhone, between 4.3-5" and they were eating into Apple's market share, which is why he made the comment nobody wants a phone bigger than 3.5" justifying his stance.

He made that comment in 2010 so he must have had some control, because they practically started producing bigger iPhones the minute he was in the ground, shifting to a 4" screen in 2012 and 4.7 and 5.5 in 2014.

I had the 1st gen and 3g iphones but left Apple for the Galaxy S around that time but the Samsung experience was horrible I went back with the 6.

 

[WebHead]

Why would Steve Jobs not want this?

When Steve returned Apple was on the verge of bankruptcy. His No.1 priority was saving the company and simplifying the product lines. The Mac was the core business.

The Newton at the time wasn't paying its way. So it's kind of ironic that a similar product ended up saving the company. But as noted above it grew out of the iPod and iPad research.

 

[tbgb50]

Networking. The magnitude of his arrogance is incalculable.

When the original Apple PC launched - storage was cassette tape. Then they added floppy drives but still useless for business purposes and they cost as much a a new car. Then came Visicalc, the first spreadsheet and sales took off.

While the market was obviously smaller, Apple had 100% of the corporate market. Only problem was no networking - you had to walk (or mail to other locations) floppy disks to share data. IBM Systems Network Architecture was a corporate standard. Jobs refused to support it 'because Apple Network is the best'. While no one wanted to switch, within 3 years, they had 0% of the market with the launch of the IBM PC.

 

[BSDnostalgia]

IBM Systems Network Architecture was a corporate standard. Jobs refused to support it 'because Apple Network is the best'.

This is the first time in my life that I've ever seen anyone get nostalgic over SNA. Seriously. Ever.